[FIC] Christmas Origami for peachpai
Gift type: Fanfic
Title: Christmas Origami
Author: dontbitethesun
Recipient: peachpai
Rating: PG
Word Count: 3244
Warnings: none
Spoilers: none
Summary: Dean and Cas decorate for their first Christmas together.
Author notes: Happy holidays, peachpai! This is a combination of your prompt Fresh snow, wings, and hot chocolate and a little bit of the second one because the idea of unconventional Christmas ornaments was just too cute to pass up.
When Dean is rudely woken up far, far too early on the Saturday morning one week before Christmas, he discovers that Cas has yet again stolen more this his fair share of the covers. One measly corner of their comforter is still wedged safely under Dean’s shoulder but somewhere near his knees Cas has managed to worm the blanket away from him and cocoon it around his feet. The upper half of his body, pressed close against Cas, is still pleasantly warm but his toes have become rather cold.
Dean shifts onto his side and says “hey, blanket thief,” as he drags his fingertips up over Cas’ bare spine. Cas shivers at the touch but otherwise doesn’t move. “Wake up. Your alarm is going off.”
Cas blinks open his eyes, smiles sleepily up at Dean and does absolutely nothing about the alarm until Dean nudges him with his knee. Cas isn’t exactly what you would call a morning person.
After slapping the alarm off, Cas rolls back over and plasters himself on top of Dean, bringing the blanket with him.
“You do know it’s Saturday right?” Dean reminds him, bringing his arms up to lazily bracket Cas’ body, wrapping him in a loose hug. “You don’t have work on the weekends.”
“I know,” Cas mumbles against his neck. “I promised Jack I’d come in for a few hours today so he could go Christmas shopping for Lacey.”
When they’d come to this sleepy New England town just a few months earlier, Cas had found a job at a nearby bookstore where they sold both new and used books. The owner, Jack, worked at the store during the day while his nine-year-old daughter was in school and Cas took over in the afternoons, giving Jack time to pick Lacey up, feed her, and get her started on her homework before the store closed at six. Normally, Cas had the weekends off. On Saturdays, Lacey liked to help her father in the store, stocking the shelves and reading chapter books when the day was slow. On Sundays, the store stayed closed.
“Are you supposed to go in early? It’s only eight o’clock.” The bookstore opens at ten, six days a week, and is only a fifteen minute walk away from their apartment.
“No,” Cas snuffles. “I want pancakes.”
“Pancakes?” Dean frowns. “That means I have to get up too.” There’s a diner a few miles away, near the garage where Dean works as a mechanic. Since Dean also has weekends off and Cas has developed something of a sweet tooth involving maple syrup, whipped cream, and cinnamon rolls, they’ve made a habit of going there for breakfast on Saturday mornings. Just usually not so early on Saturday mornings. Dean has gotten used to sleeping in and spending lazy weekend mornings in bed, Cas pressed warm and malleable against him.
“Pancccaakkeess,” Cas wheedles. “You know you want to come too. They have baaccconnn. You loooovvveee bacon.”
“You are such a dork,” Dean says with a laugh that rumbles in his chest where Cas’ ear is pressed against it.
“But you love me anyway,” Cas says, half sitting up and leaning on his elbows to look Dean in the eye.
“Yes, I do,” Dean answers softly. Cas gives him a private little smile and ducks his head to brush a brief kiss against Dean’s lips, mouths a silent me too for Dean to see.
“And you want to drive me to the diner to get pancakes,” Cas adds. He waits a beat. “Or, I suppose I could drive myself,” he teases. “Although, it did snow last night and I don’t think they’ve salted the roads yet. I guess you don’t care if I skid into a lamppost.”
“Aw, babe, that’s not playing fair.” Dean had started giving Cas driving lessons during October when the weather had been nicer. When it comes to driving, Cas is not a natural. In fact, he drives like a little old lady, shoulders hunched over the steering wheel as he peers uncertainly out the windshield, consistently traveling at least ten miles under the speed limit. As the weather had worsened, Dean had slowly been encouraging him take the wheel after the roads had been carefully salted and the ice had melted, but he’s still fairly certain that Cas should not be driving anywhere by himself yet even in perfect summer conditions.
Cas rolls out of bed, dragging the comforter with him. Dean shivers slightly in the crisp December air and gropes for the sheet. “Then I guess you’d better get up and take me,” Cas says with a grin, heading into the bathroom.
Dean lets out a noise that’s a half sigh, half chuckle. “Fine,” he answers. “You win.”
Cas was right that it did indeed snow the previous night. There are two inches of white, pristine snow covering his baby, the sidewalk, and the street. Dean pops the trunk where the only things stashed inside now are a snow scrapper and an emergency tire.
He grabs the scrapper and gets started on the Impala’s windows. Cas helps by brushing the snow off one window with his gloved hand.
A few minutes later, Dean decides “help” is probably the wrong word for what Cas is doing when Cas gathers up the snow he’s removed and throws it across the top of the car in Dean’s direction. It veers wildly off target and Dean pauses, staring at him incredulously.
“Did you just throw a snowball at my face?”
“Yes,” Cas answers, laughing. “Yes, I did.”
“You know I’m not going to let you get away with that, right?” Dean questions, gathering up his own snowball and letting it fly. Cas doesn’t answer, but he does duck down on the other side of the car, popping up a few minutes later with a new snowball and significantly better aim. “Didn’t think so,” Dean says, brushing snow off his jacket before dashing around the car to ambush Cas on the other side.
The snowball fight quickly devolves into a small wrestling match that ends with Cas shoving snow down the back of Dean’s jacket as Dean tackles him into a nearby snow bank.
“I win,” Cas says, wrapping his hands around Dean’s neck and grinning up at him. His cheeks are red from the cold and so is his nose. Dean can’t resist leaning down to brush his nose against Cas’ in chilly Eskimo kiss.
“I think it was a tie,” Dean whispers against Cas’ lips before leaning in to kiss him breathless.
“I guess so,” Cas agrees when Dean finally lets him up for air.
Dean drops Cas off at the bookstore after breakfast, agrees to pick him up again in three hours, then heads to the other side of town to do some Christmas shopping of his own. Cas’ present has been secreted away in his sock drawer for weeks but all the decorations he’s been seeing around town the past few weeks have got him thinking that it might be nice if they had a tree of their own, so he swings by the local DIY hardware store that has a nursery attached to pick one out.
The only Christmas tree they have left that’s small enough to easily fit into their meager sized apartment is a fake one. Dean doesn’t mind - or rather, he’s thinking that as long as they don’t have to kill any pagan gods with it this year, it’s more than fine. Also, it comes with the lights attached. All he has to do is plug them in.
At the register, he grabs a box of wire ornament hangers. He figures he’ll take Cas out to buy ornaments tomorrow and he’s willing to bet that ornament hooks are going to be something they forget in the press and bustle of other last-minute Christmas shoppers.
He takes the tree home and sets it up. It doesn’t take him very long, just half an hour or so. Combined with time he’d spent shopping, he’s still got a little less than two hours to go until it’s time for him to pick up Cas.
He looks around the small apartment, wondering what else he can do to make it look more festive. After all, Cas has never had a Christmas before and it’s been a long time since Dean had one either. The tree is nice but it’s not quite enough, especially since it currently lacks decorations.
He starts by gathering up the Christmas cards they’ve received and arranging them on the mantle above the fireplace. Most of the cards are from acquaintances they’ve made since moving here, with one from Bobby and a postcard from Sam mixed in - Sam’s card is postmarked from Italy but shows a photo of Greek temples and describes the Gorgon hunt that he’d found there, off on his world tour. It’s the third hunt he’s told Dean about even though this trip was supposed to be more like a year of backpacking around Europe “finding himself” like any other recent college grad than Sam killing things that go bump in the night in other countries all by his lonesome. He seems happy at least, so Dean doesn’t worry about it.
Next, Dean builds up a fire in the fireplace. He pulls the blinds and turns the lights down low so the room is enveloped by the warm glow of the fire and the soft twinkling of the tree lights, then finds a radio station playing soft holiday music. Last but not least, he gets out two packages of hot cocoa and a pair of mugs, setting them out on the counter so they’re ready for when Cas gets home.
When Dean leaves to pick Cas up, the roads are remarkably clear and Dean thinks this might just be the perfect time to let Cas drive home. He parks on the street outside Cas’ store and goes inside. He finds Cas and Lacey perched at the counter together, bent over an open book with a sheaf of brightly colored paper spread out between them.
“What are you doing?” Dean asks curiously. Cas looks up from the paper in his hands that he’s been carefully folding and gives Dean a soft smile.
“Lacey showed me how to fold origami,” Cas explains.
“He’s really good,” Lacey says, holding up a complicated shape that looks like a surprisingly good imitation of a fish. “He made this one for me. And he promised to make me an elephant too!”
“Elephants have been Lacey’s new favorite animal ever since her class went to the zoo last month.”
“Very impressive,” Dean answers.
Cas stands and shrugs into his coat. He picks up a carefully folded crane made with shiny white paper and hands it to Dean. “Here,” he says. “I made this one for you.”
“Wow, Cas,” Dean says, a soft blush staining his cheeks, genuinely touched. He reaches out with his free hand to catch Cas’ hand in his own. “This is really cool.”
“Wait,” Lacey says before they can leave the store. She closes up the book, collects a large pile of paper and hands it all to Cas. “So you can make my elephant. You can keep the extra paper, in case you need practice.”
“Thank you,” Cas says.
“Don’t forget!” Lacey shouts after them as Jack comes out of the storeroom. He waves at Dean and Cas as they make their way out the door and calls a “Thanks again,” out after them.
Out on the snowy sidewalk, Dean carefully cradles the crane in one gloved hand. “I can’t believe you did this,” he can’t help but add, examining the carefully folded lines. The paper is crisp and pristine. Cas hadn’t made a single mistake.
“It wasn’t difficult,” Cas says in an even tone, but Dean can from tell from the way that he ducks his head just slightly that he’s embarrassed by the praise. Dean drops a quick kiss to his cheek before letting go of his hand and pulling his keys from his pocket. “Come on,” he says, handing them over. “I was thinking you could drive home.”
Cas brightens at the change of subject and takes the keys out of Dean’s hand. “You’re really not worried I’m going to damage your baby in this weather?” he asks as he rounds the car to open the driver’s side door.
Dean grins at him before opening his own door on the passenger side. “I trust you,” he says. “The sky is clear, the road’s been salted. I think you’ll do okay.”
After Dean slides into the passenger seat, he keeps the hand carefully cradling the crane balanced on his knee. He rests his other arm along the back of the bench seat, the fingers of his left hand trailing lightly along the back of Cas’ neck. Though he still drives a woeful fifteen miles per hour under the speed limit, Cas gets them back safe.
“I have a surprise for you,” Dean says as he unlocks the door to their apartment. Cas doesn’t say anything, just waits patiently for Dean to slowly swing open the door for him.
Cas’ mouth drops open in awe and he wanders into the softly lit room.
“Dean, you just… wow,” he says, stopping in front of the tree.
Dean comes up and wraps his arms around him from behind. “I take it you like it.”
“Very much.”
“Good. I was thinking we could go shopping for ornaments together, but for now…” he trails off and tucks the little paper crane into the tree.
“I like it there,” Cas says.
“I do too,” Dean answers. “Too bad you couldn’t make all our ornaments.”
Cas glances towards the coffee table where he had set down the book that Lacey had given him. “The tree’s not very big. And I do have all that extra paper…” he muses.
“Yeah,” Dean agrees, “you do.”
“I could probably use some more practice after all,” he adds. “So I get Lacey’s elephant just right.”
“That is why she gave you all that extra paper, so you could practice,” Dean reasons. Dean hugs Cas tight for a moment, drops a kiss just behind his ear, and lets go. “Why don’t you get all set up, and I’ll make us some hot cocoa?”
“I would like that,” Cas answers.
Dean heats milk in the cups he’d put out earlier and stirs in the cocoa mix. It’s the kind with tiny marshmallows - Cas’ favorite. He carries the cups back out to Cas, snagging a pair of scissors on the way and mouthing along to the Christmas music still playing on the radio. He finds Cas settled on the floor in front of the coffee table, fanning out the stack of paper while he decides which color to pick. The book is already open to a page with a new animal on it.
Dean sets Cas’ mug of cocoa down near his hand and sits down on the floor across from him. He watches as Cas carefully folds and turns the paper in his hand until it resembles a little mouse.
“Do want to make one?” Cas asks.
“Nope, I got something else in mind,” Dean answers, picking out a shiny blue sheet of paper. Cas watches curiously as he folds the paper in half once and then in half again. He picks up the scissors and carefully snips away at the paper. When he’s satisfied, he unfolds the paper to reveal a symmetrical snowflake design. “Neat trick, huh?”
Cas reaches out to finger the delicate frills of paper. “It’s very intricate.”
“I like that you’re so easily impressed by things I learned in elementary school,” Dean jokes. “Means I don’t have to try so hard.”
“You never have to try hard to impress me,” Cas answers simply. “Everything you do is a wonder to me.”
For anyone else to say those words, it would have felt like they were mocking him, but on the subject of anything Dean does or thinks or feels, Cas is heartfelt and sincere every time. Dean will never get used to the way that Cas says things so outright like that, so awestruck and amazed by Dean’s very existence. It’s what lead Cas to defy heaven for him and fight beside him and then to settle down with him when it was all over and try to live a normal life just because Dean wanted to. Dean gets it; he loves it. He just doesn’t know how to talk about it.
“Cas…” They’ve had this conversation before and Dean never knows quite what to say.
“Hush,” Cas says knowingly. “Drink your cocoa.”
After four or five more snowflakes, Dean gets bored and starts doodling on the back of a few uncreased sheets of paper while Cas continues to fold. Once he has a little stack of doodles, he starts cutting the tiny figures out with his scissors, then gathers up his drawings, the snowflakes, and the ten or twelve little origami creatures that Cas has finished and starts attaching the little green ornament hooks he’d picked up along with the tree and arranges the shiny, brightly colored pieces of paper in amongst the green branches.
Cas pauses to watch. “What’s that?” he asks as Dean hangs the first of his little doodles.
“It’s a zombie,” Dean answers, moving on to hang up little drawings of a werewolf, a vampire, a mermaid, and a hellhound. “Those are all things I’ve hunted,” Dean says proudly before putting up the finishing touch.
Cas is about to ask when did you hunt a mermaid when he notices what Dean has just attached to the top of the tree. “Is that supposed to be me?” Cas asks, pointing to the little winged figure in a trench coat.
Dean nods, not even trying to hide his grin. “It’s traditional to put an angel up as a tree-topper.”
Cas studies the little angel critically. “My wingspan is much larger than that,” he remarks nonchalantly before turning back to the swan he’s folding, but Dean catches the hint of a smile on his face and laughs.
“Of course it is,” Dean answers. “I was just afraid I’d run out of paper if I made them too much bigger.”
Cas eyes the sheet that Dean had cut the tiny angel out of, with a good two inches of blank paper to spare on either side of page where he had doodled the little figure. “Sure you were,” he says.
Dean grins. He loves the way they bicker lightheartedly this way. He loves everything about Cas and their life together, actually. The way Cas hogs the covers and forgets to take out the trash, but also that he’d tried to bake a pie on Thanksgiving and even though it turned out to be a culinary disaster, it’s the thought that counts. He loves that he gets to wake up next to Cas every morning and kiss him goodnight every evening and every single minute they spend together in between.
“Hey,” Dean says, reaching over to rest his hand on top of Cas’. “I’m glad you decided to stick around with me.”
Cas just looks at Dean like he’s emotionally retarded - and okay, he might be sometimes, but he’s slowly starting to figure out the important things, at least - and says fondly, “Where else would I be?”
Title: Christmas Origami
Author: dontbitethesun
Recipient: peachpai
Rating: PG
Word Count: 3244
Warnings: none
Spoilers: none
Summary: Dean and Cas decorate for their first Christmas together.
Author notes: Happy holidays, peachpai! This is a combination of your prompt Fresh snow, wings, and hot chocolate and a little bit of the second one because the idea of unconventional Christmas ornaments was just too cute to pass up.
When Dean is rudely woken up far, far too early on the Saturday morning one week before Christmas, he discovers that Cas has yet again stolen more this his fair share of the covers. One measly corner of their comforter is still wedged safely under Dean’s shoulder but somewhere near his knees Cas has managed to worm the blanket away from him and cocoon it around his feet. The upper half of his body, pressed close against Cas, is still pleasantly warm but his toes have become rather cold.
Dean shifts onto his side and says “hey, blanket thief,” as he drags his fingertips up over Cas’ bare spine. Cas shivers at the touch but otherwise doesn’t move. “Wake up. Your alarm is going off.”
Cas blinks open his eyes, smiles sleepily up at Dean and does absolutely nothing about the alarm until Dean nudges him with his knee. Cas isn’t exactly what you would call a morning person.
After slapping the alarm off, Cas rolls back over and plasters himself on top of Dean, bringing the blanket with him.
“You do know it’s Saturday right?” Dean reminds him, bringing his arms up to lazily bracket Cas’ body, wrapping him in a loose hug. “You don’t have work on the weekends.”
“I know,” Cas mumbles against his neck. “I promised Jack I’d come in for a few hours today so he could go Christmas shopping for Lacey.”
When they’d come to this sleepy New England town just a few months earlier, Cas had found a job at a nearby bookstore where they sold both new and used books. The owner, Jack, worked at the store during the day while his nine-year-old daughter was in school and Cas took over in the afternoons, giving Jack time to pick Lacey up, feed her, and get her started on her homework before the store closed at six. Normally, Cas had the weekends off. On Saturdays, Lacey liked to help her father in the store, stocking the shelves and reading chapter books when the day was slow. On Sundays, the store stayed closed.
“Are you supposed to go in early? It’s only eight o’clock.” The bookstore opens at ten, six days a week, and is only a fifteen minute walk away from their apartment.
“No,” Cas snuffles. “I want pancakes.”
“Pancakes?” Dean frowns. “That means I have to get up too.” There’s a diner a few miles away, near the garage where Dean works as a mechanic. Since Dean also has weekends off and Cas has developed something of a sweet tooth involving maple syrup, whipped cream, and cinnamon rolls, they’ve made a habit of going there for breakfast on Saturday mornings. Just usually not so early on Saturday mornings. Dean has gotten used to sleeping in and spending lazy weekend mornings in bed, Cas pressed warm and malleable against him.
“Pancccaakkeess,” Cas wheedles. “You know you want to come too. They have baaccconnn. You loooovvveee bacon.”
“You are such a dork,” Dean says with a laugh that rumbles in his chest where Cas’ ear is pressed against it.
“But you love me anyway,” Cas says, half sitting up and leaning on his elbows to look Dean in the eye.
“Yes, I do,” Dean answers softly. Cas gives him a private little smile and ducks his head to brush a brief kiss against Dean’s lips, mouths a silent me too for Dean to see.
“And you want to drive me to the diner to get pancakes,” Cas adds. He waits a beat. “Or, I suppose I could drive myself,” he teases. “Although, it did snow last night and I don’t think they’ve salted the roads yet. I guess you don’t care if I skid into a lamppost.”
“Aw, babe, that’s not playing fair.” Dean had started giving Cas driving lessons during October when the weather had been nicer. When it comes to driving, Cas is not a natural. In fact, he drives like a little old lady, shoulders hunched over the steering wheel as he peers uncertainly out the windshield, consistently traveling at least ten miles under the speed limit. As the weather had worsened, Dean had slowly been encouraging him take the wheel after the roads had been carefully salted and the ice had melted, but he’s still fairly certain that Cas should not be driving anywhere by himself yet even in perfect summer conditions.
Cas rolls out of bed, dragging the comforter with him. Dean shivers slightly in the crisp December air and gropes for the sheet. “Then I guess you’d better get up and take me,” Cas says with a grin, heading into the bathroom.
Dean lets out a noise that’s a half sigh, half chuckle. “Fine,” he answers. “You win.”
Cas was right that it did indeed snow the previous night. There are two inches of white, pristine snow covering his baby, the sidewalk, and the street. Dean pops the trunk where the only things stashed inside now are a snow scrapper and an emergency tire.
He grabs the scrapper and gets started on the Impala’s windows. Cas helps by brushing the snow off one window with his gloved hand.
A few minutes later, Dean decides “help” is probably the wrong word for what Cas is doing when Cas gathers up the snow he’s removed and throws it across the top of the car in Dean’s direction. It veers wildly off target and Dean pauses, staring at him incredulously.
“Did you just throw a snowball at my face?”
“Yes,” Cas answers, laughing. “Yes, I did.”
“You know I’m not going to let you get away with that, right?” Dean questions, gathering up his own snowball and letting it fly. Cas doesn’t answer, but he does duck down on the other side of the car, popping up a few minutes later with a new snowball and significantly better aim. “Didn’t think so,” Dean says, brushing snow off his jacket before dashing around the car to ambush Cas on the other side.
The snowball fight quickly devolves into a small wrestling match that ends with Cas shoving snow down the back of Dean’s jacket as Dean tackles him into a nearby snow bank.
“I win,” Cas says, wrapping his hands around Dean’s neck and grinning up at him. His cheeks are red from the cold and so is his nose. Dean can’t resist leaning down to brush his nose against Cas’ in chilly Eskimo kiss.
“I think it was a tie,” Dean whispers against Cas’ lips before leaning in to kiss him breathless.
“I guess so,” Cas agrees when Dean finally lets him up for air.
Dean drops Cas off at the bookstore after breakfast, agrees to pick him up again in three hours, then heads to the other side of town to do some Christmas shopping of his own. Cas’ present has been secreted away in his sock drawer for weeks but all the decorations he’s been seeing around town the past few weeks have got him thinking that it might be nice if they had a tree of their own, so he swings by the local DIY hardware store that has a nursery attached to pick one out.
The only Christmas tree they have left that’s small enough to easily fit into their meager sized apartment is a fake one. Dean doesn’t mind - or rather, he’s thinking that as long as they don’t have to kill any pagan gods with it this year, it’s more than fine. Also, it comes with the lights attached. All he has to do is plug them in.
At the register, he grabs a box of wire ornament hangers. He figures he’ll take Cas out to buy ornaments tomorrow and he’s willing to bet that ornament hooks are going to be something they forget in the press and bustle of other last-minute Christmas shoppers.
He takes the tree home and sets it up. It doesn’t take him very long, just half an hour or so. Combined with time he’d spent shopping, he’s still got a little less than two hours to go until it’s time for him to pick up Cas.
He looks around the small apartment, wondering what else he can do to make it look more festive. After all, Cas has never had a Christmas before and it’s been a long time since Dean had one either. The tree is nice but it’s not quite enough, especially since it currently lacks decorations.
He starts by gathering up the Christmas cards they’ve received and arranging them on the mantle above the fireplace. Most of the cards are from acquaintances they’ve made since moving here, with one from Bobby and a postcard from Sam mixed in - Sam’s card is postmarked from Italy but shows a photo of Greek temples and describes the Gorgon hunt that he’d found there, off on his world tour. It’s the third hunt he’s told Dean about even though this trip was supposed to be more like a year of backpacking around Europe “finding himself” like any other recent college grad than Sam killing things that go bump in the night in other countries all by his lonesome. He seems happy at least, so Dean doesn’t worry about it.
Next, Dean builds up a fire in the fireplace. He pulls the blinds and turns the lights down low so the room is enveloped by the warm glow of the fire and the soft twinkling of the tree lights, then finds a radio station playing soft holiday music. Last but not least, he gets out two packages of hot cocoa and a pair of mugs, setting them out on the counter so they’re ready for when Cas gets home.
When Dean leaves to pick Cas up, the roads are remarkably clear and Dean thinks this might just be the perfect time to let Cas drive home. He parks on the street outside Cas’ store and goes inside. He finds Cas and Lacey perched at the counter together, bent over an open book with a sheaf of brightly colored paper spread out between them.
“What are you doing?” Dean asks curiously. Cas looks up from the paper in his hands that he’s been carefully folding and gives Dean a soft smile.
“Lacey showed me how to fold origami,” Cas explains.
“He’s really good,” Lacey says, holding up a complicated shape that looks like a surprisingly good imitation of a fish. “He made this one for me. And he promised to make me an elephant too!”
“Elephants have been Lacey’s new favorite animal ever since her class went to the zoo last month.”
“Very impressive,” Dean answers.
Cas stands and shrugs into his coat. He picks up a carefully folded crane made with shiny white paper and hands it to Dean. “Here,” he says. “I made this one for you.”
“Wow, Cas,” Dean says, a soft blush staining his cheeks, genuinely touched. He reaches out with his free hand to catch Cas’ hand in his own. “This is really cool.”
“Wait,” Lacey says before they can leave the store. She closes up the book, collects a large pile of paper and hands it all to Cas. “So you can make my elephant. You can keep the extra paper, in case you need practice.”
“Thank you,” Cas says.
“Don’t forget!” Lacey shouts after them as Jack comes out of the storeroom. He waves at Dean and Cas as they make their way out the door and calls a “Thanks again,” out after them.
Out on the snowy sidewalk, Dean carefully cradles the crane in one gloved hand. “I can’t believe you did this,” he can’t help but add, examining the carefully folded lines. The paper is crisp and pristine. Cas hadn’t made a single mistake.
“It wasn’t difficult,” Cas says in an even tone, but Dean can from tell from the way that he ducks his head just slightly that he’s embarrassed by the praise. Dean drops a quick kiss to his cheek before letting go of his hand and pulling his keys from his pocket. “Come on,” he says, handing them over. “I was thinking you could drive home.”
Cas brightens at the change of subject and takes the keys out of Dean’s hand. “You’re really not worried I’m going to damage your baby in this weather?” he asks as he rounds the car to open the driver’s side door.
Dean grins at him before opening his own door on the passenger side. “I trust you,” he says. “The sky is clear, the road’s been salted. I think you’ll do okay.”
After Dean slides into the passenger seat, he keeps the hand carefully cradling the crane balanced on his knee. He rests his other arm along the back of the bench seat, the fingers of his left hand trailing lightly along the back of Cas’ neck. Though he still drives a woeful fifteen miles per hour under the speed limit, Cas gets them back safe.
“I have a surprise for you,” Dean says as he unlocks the door to their apartment. Cas doesn’t say anything, just waits patiently for Dean to slowly swing open the door for him.
Cas’ mouth drops open in awe and he wanders into the softly lit room.
“Dean, you just… wow,” he says, stopping in front of the tree.
Dean comes up and wraps his arms around him from behind. “I take it you like it.”
“Very much.”
“Good. I was thinking we could go shopping for ornaments together, but for now…” he trails off and tucks the little paper crane into the tree.
“I like it there,” Cas says.
“I do too,” Dean answers. “Too bad you couldn’t make all our ornaments.”
Cas glances towards the coffee table where he had set down the book that Lacey had given him. “The tree’s not very big. And I do have all that extra paper…” he muses.
“Yeah,” Dean agrees, “you do.”
“I could probably use some more practice after all,” he adds. “So I get Lacey’s elephant just right.”
“That is why she gave you all that extra paper, so you could practice,” Dean reasons. Dean hugs Cas tight for a moment, drops a kiss just behind his ear, and lets go. “Why don’t you get all set up, and I’ll make us some hot cocoa?”
“I would like that,” Cas answers.
Dean heats milk in the cups he’d put out earlier and stirs in the cocoa mix. It’s the kind with tiny marshmallows - Cas’ favorite. He carries the cups back out to Cas, snagging a pair of scissors on the way and mouthing along to the Christmas music still playing on the radio. He finds Cas settled on the floor in front of the coffee table, fanning out the stack of paper while he decides which color to pick. The book is already open to a page with a new animal on it.
Dean sets Cas’ mug of cocoa down near his hand and sits down on the floor across from him. He watches as Cas carefully folds and turns the paper in his hand until it resembles a little mouse.
“Do want to make one?” Cas asks.
“Nope, I got something else in mind,” Dean answers, picking out a shiny blue sheet of paper. Cas watches curiously as he folds the paper in half once and then in half again. He picks up the scissors and carefully snips away at the paper. When he’s satisfied, he unfolds the paper to reveal a symmetrical snowflake design. “Neat trick, huh?”
Cas reaches out to finger the delicate frills of paper. “It’s very intricate.”
“I like that you’re so easily impressed by things I learned in elementary school,” Dean jokes. “Means I don’t have to try so hard.”
“You never have to try hard to impress me,” Cas answers simply. “Everything you do is a wonder to me.”
For anyone else to say those words, it would have felt like they were mocking him, but on the subject of anything Dean does or thinks or feels, Cas is heartfelt and sincere every time. Dean will never get used to the way that Cas says things so outright like that, so awestruck and amazed by Dean’s very existence. It’s what lead Cas to defy heaven for him and fight beside him and then to settle down with him when it was all over and try to live a normal life just because Dean wanted to. Dean gets it; he loves it. He just doesn’t know how to talk about it.
“Cas…” They’ve had this conversation before and Dean never knows quite what to say.
“Hush,” Cas says knowingly. “Drink your cocoa.”
After four or five more snowflakes, Dean gets bored and starts doodling on the back of a few uncreased sheets of paper while Cas continues to fold. Once he has a little stack of doodles, he starts cutting the tiny figures out with his scissors, then gathers up his drawings, the snowflakes, and the ten or twelve little origami creatures that Cas has finished and starts attaching the little green ornament hooks he’d picked up along with the tree and arranges the shiny, brightly colored pieces of paper in amongst the green branches.
Cas pauses to watch. “What’s that?” he asks as Dean hangs the first of his little doodles.
“It’s a zombie,” Dean answers, moving on to hang up little drawings of a werewolf, a vampire, a mermaid, and a hellhound. “Those are all things I’ve hunted,” Dean says proudly before putting up the finishing touch.
Cas is about to ask when did you hunt a mermaid when he notices what Dean has just attached to the top of the tree. “Is that supposed to be me?” Cas asks, pointing to the little winged figure in a trench coat.
Dean nods, not even trying to hide his grin. “It’s traditional to put an angel up as a tree-topper.”
Cas studies the little angel critically. “My wingspan is much larger than that,” he remarks nonchalantly before turning back to the swan he’s folding, but Dean catches the hint of a smile on his face and laughs.
“Of course it is,” Dean answers. “I was just afraid I’d run out of paper if I made them too much bigger.”
Cas eyes the sheet that Dean had cut the tiny angel out of, with a good two inches of blank paper to spare on either side of page where he had doodled the little figure. “Sure you were,” he says.
Dean grins. He loves the way they bicker lightheartedly this way. He loves everything about Cas and their life together, actually. The way Cas hogs the covers and forgets to take out the trash, but also that he’d tried to bake a pie on Thanksgiving and even though it turned out to be a culinary disaster, it’s the thought that counts. He loves that he gets to wake up next to Cas every morning and kiss him goodnight every evening and every single minute they spend together in between.
“Hey,” Dean says, reaching over to rest his hand on top of Cas’. “I’m glad you decided to stick around with me.”
Cas just looks at Dean like he’s emotionally retarded - and okay, he might be sometimes, but he’s slowly starting to figure out the important things, at least - and says fondly, “Where else would I be?”